We have the leave the country every 90 days, so we've done quick trips to Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, KL, and even Singapore (which sucks by the way). But we had never been to Penang, and we’d heard a few good things. So we used some credit with Air Asia to check out the island for a few days. It’s more developed than I like my islands, but that’s of course why it also has an international airport, which was convenient.

Our tickets were about $150 each round trip from Bangkok. Counting the cab ride to the airport in BKK, the flight, and the cab to Georgetown in Penang, it’s about a 5-hour trip. But it wasn’t unpleasant, and we made it in time to watch the sunset from our pimp hotel.

Georgetown is a cool colonial town with Chinese, Malay, British, and Indian culture all mixed together pretty seamlessly

. The old shops are cool, and the food is awesome. So we went to Little India the first night and wandered around, then had some amazing chicken masala.

The next day it rained all day. It’s the dry season, but we were told things have been a little off. So we stayed in town and visited an old mansion and the cultural museum. Both were cool. Actually, it was freezing to go into an air-conditioned museum while soaking wet, so afterward we went back to the hotel for some amazing hot showers. It’s weird to be cold in the tropics, even in January. So we were glad we had a nice hotel room. We also were able to order room service for the first time in our lives ($5 for lasagna) and stare at our ocean view. It was worth $60 for the room that day. We felt like millionaires.

Then on our last day, we lived it up some more. We had lunch at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. As I say in the caption, Herman Hesse stayed there. I love Hesse. And the lunch was phenomenal. It was $20 for amazing food. Penang was a splurge, but it was fun.